GNOME3 is knocking on the door and is one of the most anticipated releases, we’ve ever had. If you already took the chance and tried out a Fedora 15 nightly desktop compose, you have seen the changes and improvements that have been made in comparison to previous GNOME versions.

On a modern graphic card, GNOME3 will start the GNOME Shell which is a complete break with the commonly known desktop environments. It has not task bar for task switching, instead it relies on Alt+Tab a lot. But don’t be afraid, you can still switch back to a so called Fallback mode if you prefer the old GNOME layout and behavior (which is what I do, too). Fallback mode will also be automatically activated on low-end graphic cards and so within virtualized environments. Just open System-Settings / System-Information / Graphics and activate Forced Fallback Mode if you got a powerful hardware but still prefer a classic layout.

Fallback mode is still not perfect yet (e.g. bright white handlers look a bit displaced) and has some bugs (e.g. application menu crashes after adding an icon from the menu to the panel), but overall it’s quite usable.

So wherever you are used to Alt+Tab and are interested in a new desktop experience, take a look at GNOME Shell. If you prefer a taskbar for window switching and menus for starting applications, just activate Fallback Mode.

Together with theAlternative (a group of students who are interested in digital sustainability), we are organizing an bi-yearly event called Linuxtage where students can join up and are getting help in installing Linux.

It consists of an introduction course, two install evenings (one at the ETHZ and one at the University Zurich) and an advanced course.

Due to the fact that the students already know Fedora now from their student lab computers (which we have recently migrated) they are gettin more interested in having it on their own computer too.

As it’s not really limited even people from the region could join the events (and also do).

As FUDCon Zurich is over now, I would like to thank all who joined up and participated in. Overall it was a great time and a lot of joy, organizing this event. Maybe it wasn’t the most productive (in form of hacking) FUDCon ever, but I guess it was one of the most entertaining.

Hanging out together, having a good time, doing chit chat (and maybe even get drunk in the bunker) is necessary for team and community building.

The Barcamp sessions on Sunday where very interesting, and an option for the next FUDCon(s) could be to set up an Barcamp like open track on every event day.

FUDCon EMEA 2010 is knocking on the door so I think it’s time to slightly open it. As you may have heard, the premier Fedora event is going to happen in Zurich/Switzerland from 17th to 19th September on the premises of the ETH Zurich. It will be hosted by the so called FrOSCamp, which consists of an exhibition, talks, workshops and hackfests featuring free and open source software.

We already have about 80 pre-registrations for FUDCon and I hope some more are going to show up. We can still offer free/sponsored hosting for about 50 men and 10 women (separate room) in a so-called Zivilschutzbunker (civil defense shelter / blast-proof bunker) underneath the premises of the ETH Zurich and have some budget left to sponsor travelling.

On Friday evening we are going to have a party with live music and hopefully (free as in) FreeBeer and are planning a FUDPub for Saturday evening.

So now it’s time for YOU to think about what you can contribute to make it a unique event. Feel free to submit talk proposals, set up a workshop/hackfest, or join the orga/staff team. If you are going to attend or even if you won’t have the chance to, please blog about it and add a button to you homepage. We have also set up a Facebook page where we are going to publish further information.